leadvilleclimber wrote:It isn't always so bad... In May. I prefer corn but that doesn't cover much of the year. I can't remember many good decents on anything in calendar winter unless it is side country.

You can always judge how many CO 14ers a skier has bagged by how much disdain they have for the task. Of my 50+ descents, I've had 2 in great snow conditions. Less than 4%? Unless one's goal is to ski them all, I have trouble seeing the point. There is so much better stuff to do on skis in this state.

The only one I have skied top to bottom on good snow was Handies last year after everyone said it was out on top. Took a couple hundred feed of pizza down a cornice line then high speed corn the rest of the way. I can't name any, whether its a summit ski or just hiking a snowfield to get turns, where I haven't had some level of bad conditions at some point in the route.

Although theres no real way to ski from the summit to the top of lambslide( maybe a parachute if you feel frisky) that fun and steep. been up there three time in the last three years. twice in June almost a year apart, first time 4 inches of new snow couldnt complain, then i hit it the following April but me being solo and my isolated column test being sketchy i didnt try even through it was probably amazing, and then the following june hard as a rock and sun cupped like the demples of a golf ball. No two experiences will be the same.

RoanMtnMan wrote:You can always judge how many CO 14ers a skier has bagged by how much disdain they have for the task. Of my 50+ descents, I've had 2 in great snow conditions. Less than 4%? Unless one's goal is to ski them all, I have trouble seeing the point. There is so much better stuff to do on skis in this state.

Man, either you've had really bad luck or I had really good luck. The majority of my 14er descents were just plain fun, in good corn or pow. I think I would have stopped otherwise. But yeah, each of those days could have been potentially better on a nearby non-14er.

gb wrote:Man, either you've had really bad luck or I had really good luck. The majority of my 14er descents were just plain fun, in good corn or pow. I think I would have stopped otherwise. But yeah, each of those days could have been potentially better on a nearby non-14er.

Fair. Probably some underlying frustration in my comment from two bad winters. Every descent in CO has been fun and extremely memorable, but I think my definition of great snow got skewed after Japan!